#Software to create image of hard drive software
Inateck’s 2-bay cloner costs around £35/US$35 from Amazon, for example.ĭrive cloning software does have advantages, though, as you can move individual partitions and do more than simply cloning entire drives. These work independently of a PC or laptop and may even cost less than software.
The point is that some cloning software isn't able to shrink partitions even if there’s a lot of free space in them.Īn alternative to software is a physical hard disk duplicator. SSD prices have come down a lot, but it's nice to have this feature.īig-to-small cloning isn’t magic, though: you’ll still have to delete or transfer enough files so the remaining data will physically fit on the new drive. One of the main features you should look out for is the ability to clone a larger-capacity drive to a smaller one, as it’s common for an SSD to have less storage than traditional hard disks. Some cloning apps are easier to use than others. There's a real selection from the most basic free apps that run from a USB stick (such as Clonezilla) through to the latest version of Acronis which now comes with antivirus software and anti-theft protection. We've included free and paid-for options here. In some cases, you can even put the new drive in a different computer with a different motherboard and everything should work perfectly. These apps are especially useful if you also want to move Windows from one drive to another, as it’s impossible to copy Windows manually because of the various partitions involved.Ĭloning also means your Windows apps, settings and data will also be cloned to the new drive. If you’re upgrading to a bigger hard drive, or moving data to an SSD, the quickest and simplest way to move that data is to use cloning software.
0 kommentar(er)
